Can't get heat down

dorfami · February 3

First long low and slow. Filled XL to top of fire ring for an 11 pound pork shoulder. Shooting 20-22 hours at around 250. Lit the middle top, bottom vent barely open, top open just enough to let heat out but can't get temp below 300. Help please.

njl · February 3

All you can do is reduce air flow and wait. I sometimes will open the dome and literally blow the hot air out, then shut it, when I'm in a hurry to cool it down.

Max232 · February 3

Put the meat on, it will drop.

dorfami · February 3

Can't close down airflow much more or I'll lose the fire.

Kosko · February 3

I agree with max232. Temp will drop when you put the meat on.

U_tarded · February 3

check your dome thermo, if its not calibrated it could easily be off 50* or more or less.

SouthernSmoke · February 3

I'm having the same problem right now, I basically have the the vent closed and the DFMT barely cracked. Meat is already on, but I'm just going with it. This will give me an excuse to stay up later and drink a few more beers

gerhardk · February 3

njl said:

All you can do is reduce air flow and wait. I sometimes will open the dome and literally blow the hot air out, then shut it, when I'm in a hurry to cool it down.

Opening the dome will let hot air out but does nothing to calm the fire, it actually gives more oxygen to the fire so make it burn hotter for a short time. I agree if you put the meat on and control the vents you should cool down, also a calibrated will give you honest feed back.

Gerhard

milesbrown4 · February 3

i am up working two butts myself - I agree with @gerhardk if you keep the vents just short of closed the BGE will figure itself out. Just trust it. And drink to you health!

nolaegghead · February 3

The egg has a lot of thermal mass. If it's been hot long enough to heat up the ceramic, just flushing out the hot air is a loosing proposition because that's just a tiny bit of the total heat and you're just adding O2 (and stoking the fire). Just damper down the vents a bit and let it cool down, a slow process. If you're worried it'll be done too soon, compensate by running under your set-point target temp for a time-weighted remaining part of your cook.

jfm0830 · February 3

dorfami said:

...Lit the middle top, bottom vent barely open, top open just enough to let heat out but can't get temp below 300.

How did you light it, with paraffin starters or something else? I know when I'm looking for 225 I use one paraffin starter and I also close the lid pretty quickly after lighting the paraffin starter. I also start shutting things down pretty quickly. About 75° below 225 I start dialing in my final settings. I don't want to overshoot my temperature, because as you say it's very hard to get back

dorfami · February 3

Thanks guys. Only been at this a few weeks and dealing with the learning curve but this forum has been helpful. Calibrated the thermo before the cook, only off about 10*. Put the meat on and temp dropped considerably. Monitored overnight every few hours and now I'm down to 275. Started with electric starter and started to shut down pretty quick. Guess I'll leave it be and so where it is at after church.

IrishDevl · February 3

275 is fine. Doesn't need to be exact.

Pjoe · February 3

Every Egg has a "sweet spot" where it seems it likes to settle in. Yours may be 275*. If it is and you want to go lower and slower you can always get a Stoker or BBQ Guru but you should learn to control with the vents first.

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Can't get heat down

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